Rally protests changes to state’s voting laws

Behind a sea of plastic flamingos, Justin Guillory of Progress NC delivers a press conference opposing proposed North Carolina voting laws Friday afternoon. The flamingos were used to draw a comparison between North Carolina and the Florida legislature that passed similar voting laws that, Guillory said, proved to be disastrous.

Bill Hand/Sun Journal

By Bill Hand, Sun Journal Staff

Published: Friday, July 19, 2013 at 04:41 PM.

New Bern was a stop for a statewide touring press conference protesting proposed voting laws in the Tarheel state.

The conference, aimed at building opposition to early voter restrictions being considered by the N.C. House in Raleigh, was held at Union Point Park at 2:30 p.m. amid 20 supporters with protest signs and three invited speakers.

Justin Guillory of Progress NC and Bob Hall of Democracy NC placed 20 or so plastic flamingos around a podium while Guillory wore “tourist style” shorts, shirt and sunglasses to speak. He said the point was to compare the proposed voter laws, which would shorten early voting from 14 to eight days, to a similar law passed in Florida that, he said, “proved to be a complete debacle.”

Raleigh, he said, “is about to make the same mistake that Florida made. We are here to say ‘No.’” He said that, while voting “shouldn’t be as easy as switching on a light,” it should also not be made complicated as proposed voting laws, regarding both early voting and voting I.D. laws, likely will.

“In 2011, Florida’s governor and State Legislature made a number of changes to Florida election law including cutting early voting from 14 days to just 8, and eliminating voting on Sunday before Election Day,” a news release handed out by Guillory said. The release quoted Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections in Leon County, Florida, as calling it “a nightmare.”

The result, Guillory said, resulted in last-day lines that “stretched so long that voters needed food, water and even lawn chairs.”

New Bern was a stop for a statewide touring press conference protesting proposed voting laws in the Tarheel state.

The conference, aimed at building opposition to early voter restrictions being considered by the N.C. House in Raleigh, was held at Union Point Park at 2:30 p.m. amid 20 supporters with protest signs and three invited speakers.

Justin Guillory of Progress NC and Bob Hall of Democracy NC placed 20 or so plastic flamingos around a podium while Guillory wore “tourist style” shorts, shirt and sunglasses to speak. He said the point was to compare the proposed voter laws, which would shorten early voting from 14 to eight days, to a similar law passed in Florida that, he said, “proved to be a complete debacle.”

Raleigh, he said, “is about to make the same mistake that Florida made. We are here to say ‘No.’” He said that, while voting “shouldn’t be as easy as switching on a light,” it should also not be made complicated as proposed voting laws, regarding both early voting and voting I.D. laws, likely will.

“In 2011, Florida’s governor and State Legislature made a number of changes to Florida election law including cutting early voting from 14 days to just 8, and eliminating voting on Sunday before Election Day,” a news release handed out by Guillory said. The release quoted Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections in Leon County, Florida, as calling it “a nightmare.”

The result, Guillory said, resulted in last-day lines that “stretched so long that voters needed food, water and even lawn chairs.”

Eventually Florida reinstated the 14-day early election.

Bob Hall told supporters expressed the importance of early voting in Craven County. In 2012, according to a Democracy North Carolina release, Craven residents cast 46,380 votes of which 28,3218 — that is, 61 percent of the votes cast — were early voting. He noted the state also had 1,072 voters taking advantage of Same Day Registration (SDR) to vote.

Hall claimed that North Carolina, a state traditionally among the lowest in the nation for voter turn-out, rose to having the 12th highest turnout in 2012 because of early voting.

Speaking of the Republican legislators, he said, “They only do this to affect certain types of people from voting. They don’t want students voting. They don’t want African Americans voting. They don’t want women voting.”

Marshall Williams, president of the New Bern NAACP, also gave a brief comment in support of Democracy North Carolina and Progress NC, stating that voters needed to speak out against “voter suppression.”

The press conference was also held earlier in the day at the Pitt County Courthouse in Greenville where, according to Guillory, about 20 people attended. There, Guillory and Hall were joined as speakers by an ECU and a Pitt Community College student.